Professionals warn Lanka not to be lulled into complacency over US withdrawal of MCC

By Rathindra Kuruwita

The United States and its allies would not halt their attempts to secure a foothold in Sri Lanka although the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact had been discontinued and that the decision was a strategic one to lull Sri Lankan public into complacency, professional and civil society organizations yesterday warned.

General Secretary of the Professionals’ National Front (PNF), Engineer Kapila Perera said that the MCC compact was not a grant, but a part of the Indo-Pacific strategy pushed by the US and India.

Perera said: “The MCC is part of their strategy to use Sri Lanka and other nations for military and strategic purposes.

The MCC compact does not stand alone but it should be taken with Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and, Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA).’

Perera said that PNF and other patriotic forces had identified the danger posed by the MCC and the public too understood the peril the country faced.

“The committee appointed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa also came to the same conclusions we did. We are grateful for the stance this committee took.”

Dr. Samantha Ananda, senior vice chairman of the PNF said that the US and its allies would not give up their attempts to secure a foothold here. He added that there might be plans afoot to achieve the objectives of MCC, i.e. securing the Trincomalee harbour and obtaining data about Sri Lanka’s land, by other means.

Ananda said: “This is not over. The US and its allies have not been defeated. Politicians and officials will knowingly or unknowingly try to push imperialist agendas. We must be weary and be ready.”

The Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR) too warned that although the MCC Compact was no more, the land reforms attempted to meet advance the imperialist agenda were being slowly implemented by the incumbent government.

MONLAR Moderator, Chinthaka Rajapakshe said that relaxing land laws and creating large swathes of land available for foreign investors was an underlying objective of the MCC compact.

“The government has been slowly attempting to relax land laws. For example the decision to hand over the control of ‘other state forest lands’ to Divisional Secretaries and opening lands to large scale commercial agriculture are a part of a larger design. This is not something that started with Gotabaya started; nor will it end with him. Successive governments have promoted imperialist ideology and the only thing that has stopped them is public outrage. We must remain vigilant because trouble is not over.”